If another person asks me to build their entire app or website for 50% equity because they’re “handling the business side,” I might lose it a little.
I remember seeing this as a meme freshman year: “Bro I have this insane idea. You build it. I’ll do marketing. 50-50.”
I thought it was exaggerated.
It’s not.
This has happened to me dozens of times. And it’s increased a lot since I’ve been posting more online. The DMs are real. I’ve even been stopped on campus about it. There’s still a belief that idea + enthusiasm = half the cap table.
And the NDAs are wild. I’ve signed NDAs just to hear very generic ideas. We act like it’s proprietary nuclear tech, and it’s “Uber but for ___.” If the moat is secrecy, it’s probably not a moat.
The reality is: we are living in the easiest time in history to build.
You don’t need a technical cofounder on day one.
You don’t need to split equity immediately.
You don’t need $200k.
You don’t even need to major in computer science.
You need a laptop, YouTube, tools like Claude or Cursor, and the willingness to struggle for a few days.
Auth, payments, AI features, deployment: it’s all documented. Free. Step by step. Building an MVP in 2026 does not require a NASA contract.
More people should just try to build something. Anything. Ugly. Duct-taped. Barely functional.
Because once you try building, everything changes.
You respect engineering effort.
You understand scope and constraints.
You stop throwing around 50-50 like it’s nothing.
I’m not saying everyone needs to become a full-time engineer.
But if you haven’t built even one functional product and you’re offering half your company for someone else to do all the work, that’s worth rethinking.
At least try it yourself first.
Go build something.